Adebayo Alonge, Lagos Business School Alumnus currently on the Master of Advancement Programme at Yale School of Management, has recently started a company, RxAll, dedicated to creating safe, reliable pipelines of high-quality drugs in Africa.
According to a publication by Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, Alonge’s personal experience with counterfeit drugs is largely responsible for his personal and professional vision; shaping his career and leading to start RxAll. His cofounder, Ankur Kapadia, also in the School of Management’s MBA for Executives programme has an extensive background in healthcare technology.
Alonge’s team was the second admitted into the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute’s Global Social Venture Creation Programme (VCP). The programme provides education, mentorship and guidance for early-stage teams looking to develop their ventures. They were also recently a finalist for InnovateHealth Yale’s Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education.
According to the Yale Institute, the startup has completed a market study in Nigeria speaking to 50 pharmacists who have indicated a strong interest in buying from a secure online-based pipeline instead of the open market. They are also speaking to the Food and Drug Administration and looking to connect with a materials scientist at Yale to optimise the technology used to verify the drugs. They plan to begin with the region’s most common medications antimalarials, antibiotics and chronic diabetes medications.
The Institute also confirmed that the Global Social Venture Creation Programme will help to support a pilot test of the ordering platform in Nigeria. “We want to see how many pharmacies would convert to the platform and get metrics around acquisition and cost,” Alonge says. They are also doing a second-stage market study, talking to local manufacturers, pharmacies and users.
Alonge attended the MBA programme at Lagos Business School and emerged one of the 25 young African leaders selected to study on Mandela Washington Fellowship by the United States Department of State.
